A conventional burner employed to provide heat to, for example, a furnace is fixed in place in a furnace wall and directs the flame or combustion reaction emanating from the burner to a fixed point in the combustion zone within the furnace. Many burners have controls for changing the shape of the flame from, for example, a long, thin flame to a short, bushy flame in order to better match the heating provided by the burner to the demand required by the furnace charge. However, it is sometimes necessary or desirable to change the direction of the burner flame. For example, in the melting of scrap metal it is desirable to change the direction of the flame to provide heat directly to the unmelted scrap rather than to wait for conduction and convection currents to provide heat to the unmelted scrap from the area within the combustion zone where the flame is directed.
One way of changing the flame direction of a burner is to employ directional nozzles in a burner and change the nozzle when a new flame direction is desired. This method is disadvantageous because it requires that the burner be shut down and cooled every time a flame direction change is required. Moreover this method requires the maintenance of an inventory of directional nozzles.
Another way of changing the flame direction of a burner is to manually adjust the position of the burner either directly or through a mechanical adjusting system. Direct manual adjustment of a burner is dangerous and mechanical adjusting systems are complicated and prone to breakdown in the harsh environment of an industrial furnace. In addition space limitations around an industrial furnace may preclude the deployment of a mechanical adjusting system.
It is desirable therefore to have a system which will easily and effectively enable one to change the flow direction of a fluid passing from a nozzle into a combustion zone, such as an oxidant passing from a burner or lance nozzle into a combustion zone.
When the fluid is high velocity fluid such as a high velocity oxidant which might be employed with an oxygen burner, the desired directional change is much more difficult to effectuate while still maintaining stable operation.
Accordingly it is an object of this invention to provide an apparatus which will enable one to inject high velocity fluid into a combustion zone and to easily change the direction in which the fluid is injected into the combustion zone.
It is another object of this invention to provide a method for easily changing the flow direction of a high velocity fluid being injected into a combustion zone.